


As You Do

by AKAFishAKA



Series: Linked Relations [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bonding, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Racing, it ends happy though, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKAFishAKA/pseuds/AKAFishAKA
Summary: 8 times Sky's adventure mirrors the others, 1 time where it doesn't, and the many worries that come with guilt and curses.
Relationships: Sky & Time (Linked Universe)
Series: Linked Relations [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517579
Comments: 10
Kudos: 357





	As You Do

It was a calm morning for the group. Wild had made some simple wheat bread for breakfast (but warm with the butter, it was so especially good), and most of the group was busy packing their stuff up for another day of walking. Warriors himself didn’t have much to pack up (the props of only having four non-main weapons), so he was sitting watching Legend place his plethora of items into the correct place in his magical pouch. He’d offered to help, but Legend had just scoffed and said that he didn’t trust him with his stuff, pretty boy. Warriors did not like that nickname and Legend knew it.

This did allow Warriors to fully engage in another one of Wind’s tall yet true tales. This one was about a pirate named Jolene who’s favorite activity was trying to fight the owner of Warriors’ borrowed ship. From the story, Warriors would classify this person as a coward, one of the worst types of people in his own opinion, but Wind loved the man with his whole heart and Wind was not afraid to badmouth someone he did not like, so Warriors was holding out on judgement until he met him. Warriors also thought that the group would be enjoying the story much more if they hadn’t just woken up, since a large majority of the group were not morning people.

“So ANYWAYS, as we were leaving Maze Island-”

“Which is called Maze Island because it was a maze,” Time stated sagely in order to calm the argument that the group had been having about stupid obvious names for things.

“Yeah, yeah, so we were leaving Maze Island when BOOM, Jolene appears out of NOWHERE and she fucking shouts ‘I”VE FINALLY FOUND YOU, LINEBECK’ and Linebeck’s like ‘fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck we are leaving kid’ so I pull it into high gear, ‘cause this isn’t a sailship-”

“It’s a steamship,” the entire group droned.

“IT’S A FUCKING STEAMSHIP, BABY! SO I pull it into high gear and step on it, when she pulls out the TORPEDOS, and Ciela’s-”

“That’s the fairy,” Warriors supplies.

“Ciela’s all like ‘Link, I don’t know who this is, but it isn’t looking good,’ and I’m like ‘no shit Sherlock’, but don’t worry, I wasn’t gonna sink because I’ve got the  _ pro pirate moves _ , so I jumped the ship RIGHT OVER HER TORPEDOS-”

“You jumped the ship?” Hyrule asked, confused.

“Yeah, with my magical wind powers, dumbass! I jumped the ship with my dope ass wind powers when I realized that her goal was to fucking board us, right, so right as she was charging at us, I pulled the break and she flew by us!”

“As you do, as you do,” Sky nodded as he reorganized his bag.

“So she was fucking pissed- wait, what?” Warriors blinked. No one had been able to get Wind to stop a story before. Everyone he knew in his dimension had tried when he’d first met the kid and they’d all failed. Even Sheik had failed. Zelda had pulled the Sheik card and it had failed. Wind was an unstoppable force of chaos and passion and he had abandoned his story to stare at Sky, who was completely oblivious.

Warriors had to stop this silence. “Sky.”

“Hm?” Sky looked up.

“You-” Wind stormed up to Sky. “Have you sailed a steamship before?”

“I don’t know if it was a steamship, don’t know what classifies one of those, but it didn’t have any sail-”

“You’ve SAILED before and you DIDN’T FUCKING TELL ME?”

“I didn’t think you’d care that much, so I didn’t mention it.”

Wind was beaming. “I can’t believe it! I have a sailing buddy!”

“I’m excited too,” Sky said questioningly, “but haven’t we all done some sailing?”

“No, everyone else hasn’t sailed a real boat-”

“Oh come on, I’ve canoed, that counts for something,” Twilight complained.

“Canoes are for pussies, dipshit, get yourself a galleon and we’ll talk,” Wind seethed, effectively silencing Twilight, “and don’t even fucking start on your RAFTS!” Wild shut his mouth right away, and it seemed Hyrule was smart enough to not even start. “ANYways, no one here has sailed a REAL boat and told me except for me and you!”

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Sky responded, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

“It’s ok! What type of boat did you sail?” Wind asked, beaming.  
“I’m not sure. It had a lever, and the captain, a small robot, said that pulling it made it go, so I just kinda stumbled my way through it…”

Warriors at this point zoned out of the conversation in order to help Legend pack up his fucking items (by Hylia, Legend, where did you get all these items?). Legend wasn’t against him helping now, he thought. Wonder why.

* * *

Time hated the heat. Wearing very complex armor really helped in large battles, and had compensated for his blind side more times than he could count. One thing thick armor was not helpful for was walking through a volcano. Time was eternally grateful he’d found a Goron Tunic when he was nine.

Looking around the group as they marched around, Time could tell that with the minor exceptions of Wild and Wind, the rest of the group also looked miserable. Twilight and Sky’s cloaks were gone, probably stored in Wild’s slate. Four’s hair was up in a very tight bun off of his neck. Warriors looked miserable, his scarf sopping wet with sweat and thus clutched in his hand. Hyrule was silent but visibly exhausted, while Legend’s exhaustion was shown by the very visible weariness on his face, an emotion that would never be shown under normal circumstances.

“Allright, everyone,” Time announced, slowly drawing attention to himself, “time for a water break.”

“I’ll fucking push you into the lava,” Legend deadpanned.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you can die of dehydration then, more for us,” Time deadpanned back.

There was a pause. “Was that not a time pun?”

“Nope.”

“Ah. Sorry. In that case, I’ll take 20 waters.”

Wild, luckily, had been petitioned to store exuberant amounts of water after they’d spent a day in Time’s own Kakariko and Time had refused to let them drink any of the well water, so they had plenty. Time himself drank at least a gallon, and he sure did need it.

“Drink more water,” Legend pressed another waterskin to Hyrule’s chest, “you’re getting heatstroke, I can tell, I’ve seen it. You too, pretty boy, you look like your makeup’s melting off.”

“More like my face is melting off,” Warriors grumbled.

Hyrule finished his current waterskin and took the other. “I hate mountains. No mountain I have been to is any good.”

“Drink,” Legend demanded. Hyrule sighed and took the waterskin Legend was pressing to his chest. Legend nodded, then declared, “I agree. All the mountains I’ve been to have been bad news.”

“You have a point, but I think deserts are worse,” Warriors added. “Walking through the sand destroys your body, and you get worse sunburns.”

“The mountains can burn you just as bad, though,“ Twilight interjected, “once, I was climbing a mountain looking for magic tears, right?”

Sky swallowed his mouthful of water. “Yeah, yeah, as you do, continue.”

“Well, this mountain had high pressure steam vents, and I managed to get blasted. My whole left side was burnt for months.”

“Gosh, that fucking blows.” Wind commented. The group nodded in agreement.

“Wild, are there steam vents on your mountain?” Time asked.

“Not that I know of,” Wild confirmed.

“Wonderful. Now, Twilight, Sky, did you guys both say you collected magic tears?”

“Yeah,” Twilight and Sky said at the same time. Twilight and Sky then proceeded to say two very different sentences in unison.

“Woh woh woh guys, one at a time,” Four piped from where he was downing his drink.

“I collected Tears of Light to save the light spirits from their curse,” Twilight explained.

“As like a test, I had to collect Sacred Tears, and if I did it I got an item,” Sky said.

“I didn’t get any items for helping the spirits,” Twilight complained, “I got fairy fountains.”

“I would’ve loved a fairy fountain though, you were lucky, that’s great.”

“You have a point. Wait, hold on.”

“What?”

“Did you collect magical tears like I did?”

“I- I think that’s what this conversation is about?”

“That's it, the heat is getting to us,” Time decided. “Let’s go, guys. If we walk all day we can make it to the stable by nightfall. Twi, Sky, you can have your crisis on the way down.”

* * *

Although they were walking across the Ibara Butte in his own world, Wild could smell the ocean from here. Wild enjoyed the beach. He wondered if the rest of the group liked the beach.

“Fuck yeah, it’s the ocean!” Wind cheered.

“Like the real ocean? How wonderful!” Sky smiled. 

On the other side of the group, Legend was muttering something complainatory to Hyrule, who looked confused. Hy’ responded, ”I think the ocean can be really nice, though, it's not as bad as, like, a mountain.” So Legend did not like the ocean, but Wind and Sky did. He was getting really good at this reading group dynamic thing.

“Speak of the devil, there she is,” Time said, pointing ahead.

Yup, there sure was the ocean strait ahead of them. All that stood between them was a very tall cliff (not that Wild cared, he could just jump off and glide down. The others, not so much). 

“Fastest way down’s gonna be straight to our left until it’s safe to jump. If we stay between the entrance to that path over there,” Wild stated, pointing to the path leading to the heart of the Faron region, “and this cliff here where we are now, we should be fine. If we go farther though, we’ll hit a talus or a guardian, and both of those suck when you don’t know what to do to beat them.”

“Oh yeah, you don't wanna mess with guardians.” Sky agreed.

Wild started. “Have you fought a-”

“Who wants to race?” Wind dared.

“Oh, you’re on, sandman!” Warriors immediately rose to the challenge.

“I’m gonna be thrilled watching you lose,” Legend smirked.

“A race does sound fun,“ Sky agreed as Warriors, Legend, and Wind continued arguing. Four seemed caught between racing and being responsible, while Time, Twi, and ‘Rule were not excited. Well, their loss.

“Ok, it’s on!” Wild decided. ”First to Martha’s Landing, that point right there, wins. No impeding other racers, other items are allowed. Anyone not racing can see where we’re going so it’ll be fine, Twilight.”

“I haven't said anything!”

“Your face tells me everything I need to know. Who’s racing?” Warriors, Legend, Wind, Sky, and Four, eyes shining a brilliant blue in excitement (he’d seemed to have quelled whatever internal argument he was having), raised their hands. “Cool, are we all ready?”

“Ready!” said everyone racing. Warriors then seemed to remember something.

“Ok! On your marks…”

Warriors licked his finger and held it up in the air.

“Get set…”

“Wind don’t you fucking dare-”

“GO!”

Wind promptly jumped straight off the cliff, pulling out a huge deku leaf and using it as a sail. “HAHAHA,” he shouted back towards the cliff bound group, “SUCKERS!”

“DAMN IT WIND!” Warriors shouted, “I can’t believe I forgot he could glide…”

“Wait up!” Sky cried before also jumping off the cliff, pulling his cape off his back and using it as a glider.

“Oh no you guys don’t!” Wild laughed, pulling out his paraglider and jumping off. He knew how fast this sucker was, he could catch up easy.

Four shrugged. “If you can’t beat ‘em.” He then pulled out his old hat and jumped off the cliff. He was up much too high for his cape to guarantee a safe landing, and the hat-parachute had taken Red a very long time to figure out how to successfully sew into hat so that it worked like Ezlo had, so he oughta use it to its full potential.

Back on the cliff, the rest of the group stared. Warriors looked over at Legend. “How do you not have an item for this?”

Legend frowned. “I dunno, I have items for superior jumping, nothing for gliding.”

“Well, guess we both come in last then.”

“Both?” Legend laughed, “I may lose to those four, but I sure am gonna beat you.”

With that, he took off running. “Ah, Hylia be damned,” Warriors cursed, before running off after him.

Meanwhile, in the air, Wild had caught up to Sky. His cloth was not very fast horizontally. Wind, meanwhile, had sped forward at an unexpected rate (probably due to the whole could control the wind thing), so Wild had given up on that one.

“Hey,” he called out to Sky, “where’d you get that glider?”

“Oh, my sailcloth? It was a gift from my Zelda when I graduated from school.”

“That’s really sweet! But on a more serious note, you said you know about the guardians?”

“Oh yeah, they’re terrifying. Huge, deadly swords.”

“Yes, and they’re so fast!”

“And some of them fly!”

“And they have the deadly lasers you have to reflect!”

“They have the deadly  _ what  _ you have to  _ what _ ?!?!?”

Surprising no one, Wind won the race, followed by Wild, Sky, Four, Legend, and a very pissed off Warriors. No races were to be done in the near future.

Wild learned many things that day. When Wind challenges you to something, he’s got a plan up his sleeve. About half the group is ready to jump off a cliff at a moment's notice. And Sky and Wild’s guardians were both very scary and very different things.

* * *

Hyrule was feeling really down. Wind could tell because the sadness outweighed the nervousness, and Hyrule was always more nervous than any other emotion. This made it very hard to read Hyrule unless he was extremely happy, sad, excited, or any other emotion. This is the opposite of Wind himself, who couldn’t have hidden an emotion if there was a gun to his head, not that he really considered hiding them anyways. If he was upset people were gonna have to fucking deal with it.

Following his own mantra, the best way to make someone feel better was to let them complain to you. Thus, Wind walked straight up to Hyrule, who was sitting alone on the edge of their camp, and asked, “What the fuck is up with you?’

“Huh? Oh, sorry, I just was thinking, do you need my help with something?” Hyrule went to stand up.

“Oh no no no, you put your ass on that log and rant to me. You are SAD, and the best way to stop being sad is to talk about it.”

“Mmm…” Hyrule mused, ”I don’t want to be a bother.”

Wind let his tone become more gentle.“You’re not. I promise.”

“...ok, I'm just nervous because you all are so strong and skilled and I don’t really stack up to all of that at all.”

“Oh come on, you’re plenty skilled, you’ve got that cool down strike move.”

“Well, yeah, but- but- I didn’t even get given the Triforce like Time or Legend.”

“Hy’. You know I also had to go and dig up all the fucking peices of the Triforce of Courage. I told you that almost as soon as I met you. Hell, Four and Wild hadn’t even heard of the damn thing! You're fine.”

“I mean, yeah, but…”

Wind could tell that this was not working. Crud. He needed backup. Who is the closest to them right now? Sky!

“Yo, Sky!”

Sky looked up and walked over. “What is it, you guys?”

“Tell Hyrule that just because he had to find the Triforce doesn’t mean he sucks.”

“Oh yeah, what Wind said, I had to find the Triforce too, it’s not a bad thing.”

“Wait,” Hyrule asked, “you did?”

“Yeah, it was locked away in a Temple like it was supposed to be.”

“HaHA!” Wind exclaimed. This would improve Hy’s mood! “See Hyrule? Sky had to find the Triforce and he saved the world and even has a fucking girlfriend now! You’re perfectly fine! Now,” Wind continued, pulling Hyrule up, “let’s go see what Wild is cooking. I don’t know what it is, but it looks delicious!”

Sky was left to watch Wind drag Hyrule away, completely ignoring the kid’s question of what having a girlfriend had to do with the Triforce. Sky frowned. That’s the fourth time- no. He shook his head, then followed. He was just happy to know his comment had helped.

* * *

Warriors dodged the outstretched spear of the lizalfos, slipping around it before stabbing it directly between the ribs. He whipped around while pulling his sword out. Blood wasn’t black, alright. Where is everyone? Legend was over there handling two other lizalfos with ease, he’d frozen and burned one, and now was using wind to make them dizzy, who gave him all those elemental rods? Oh wait, Ravio had. He knew that. Where was everyone else? Sky and Wild were on completely opposite sides of the battlefield and taking down just swathes of bokoblins. Twilight was sniping as backup from the top of the base they were attacking, no enemies were on the base. Hyrule and Time were taking on a large moblin together, as were Four and Wind, though in very different ways, Four and Wind were darting in and out while Hy and Time had a more tank-support type fighting style. That was everyone. Warriors looked for more lizards. There weren’t more lizards.

No… he must have missed something. Were there more lizards? Warriors looked for more lizards. They do turn invisible. No, but there were no lizards. Twi wasn’t being threatened by any monsters. Sky was done fighting, Wild had two more, the moblins were down. Were there more bokoblins? No, Wild had killed them. Were any enemies sneaking up on them? No, none on the base. Any in the woods? None in the woods behind Four and Wind and Wild and most of the group actually. Wait, what about behind him?

Warriors whipped around again. There weren’t any bokoblins directly behind him. But the lizards could turn invisible, but there weren’t any lizards, they weren't that invisible, he’d be able to see them. That couldn’t just be it, there must be something he’s missing-

“Warriors?” Warriors spun around, slashing his sword directly in front of Sky’s chest. Sky cocked his head. “Yeah, I kinda guessed you’d do that.”

“Fuck, sorry, Sky, I-”

“No, it’s fine. Warriors, there’s no more monsters, we took care of them all.”

“But there were only, only like 15.”

“Yeah, there were. Wild said this was slightly higher than average for his world.”

For this world, oh, yeah. The other’s worlds had wandering monsters, demons housing in various groves and grottoes, ghouls alone in graveyards. You don’t run into armies of enemies unless you’re in his world, and unless you go looking for a fight. “Hm. He did, huh.”

“He did.” Sky smiled slightly as Warriors put his sword away. “You ok?”

“Didn’t get hit once.”

“Good. And mentally?”

“Mentally?” Warriors swallowed down his earlier panic and smirked.”I’m great.”

“I think you were starting to hyperventilate there.”

“Was I?” Sky nodded. “Ah.” Warriors’ shoulders slumped. He shouldn't let that show in the future. “Sorry.”

“I don’t know that much about mental health but I feel like you shouldn’t apologize for hyperventilating,” Sky scolded.

“You sound like my sister,” Warriors murmured, causing Sky to laugh. Louder, he said, “I think I’m just more used to large scale battles, you know?”

“Oh, I understand, they’re extremely different. There’s a lot more to watchout for. You lose track of something and there’s an arrow in your shoulder.” 

“Or worse,” Warriors agreed, starting to walk back to where the main group had gathered. He then glanced back at Sky. “Have you fought in the army?”

“Oh, no, I just fought a full army once, as you do sometimes, you know? It was one of the last things I did before fighting Demise. I wouldn’t like to do it again though, I was really trying to focus and still got blindsided multiple times. To be honest, the fact that you do that regularly is insanely impressive.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” Warriors replied, “but it’s all in the practice, I assure you. You’re far ahead of the others just by fighting an army once. If we ever fall into that scenario, you’re my right hand man.”

“Only if you promise to give me some tips.”

“Of course.”

* * *

Time was on first watch tonight. It’d been a long day, not due to any fighting, but due to the large mountain they had arrived at the top of. Despite their most experienced verteran leading, it hadn’t been the best climb down.

At least the stars were bright. Time had been really into stargazing before his time in Termina. At home, he still stargazed, but avoided full moons. Instead, he and Malon often held midnight picnics on the night of the new moon, and stared at the constellations decorating the sky.

“Hey Time?”

Time looked up. It was Sky. Well, think of the devil. “What is it, Sky?”

Sky sat down next to him. “Did you do time travel too?”

Time was not sure what he was expecting. It wasn’t that. He was gonna have to tackle this question in parts, starting with the why. “And why are you asking this?”

Sky sighed, staring down the mountain. “Recently some of the others have been realizing I tend to share similar challenges with them. Like, we faced similar stuff while on our adventures. Have you noticed that?”

“Like with Twilight on the mountain?”

“Like with Twilight on the mountain, yes.”

“Yeah, I had noticed.” He’d been present for the times with Wind and Wild, but had also noticed some other heart-to-hearts Sky had been having with others which seemed to be about this too.

“I-I’m not sure if I like it. We know I’m the first hero in the timeline, right?”Time nodded. Sky pursed his lips. “I- I don’t think I like this and it’s making me nervous, but I have to check, I have to know, right? I have to know if this is coincidence or pattern.”

“So you knew my title and decided to take a chance.”

“Yeah. I didn’t ask it well, that was rude of me. You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to. I just wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyways.”

Time looked at Sky. He was still staring down the mountain. His body language was different than normal. Sky almost always looked confident. It was a mix of the cape, the posture, and the calm demeanor no matter the scenario. Even in fights, Sky managed to stay calm, and sure he got nervous when one of them got hurt, but he never showed any effect on his fighting abilities. This was the first time Time had seen Sky nervous just on his own, and he hadn’t quite realized how much of a stabilizing force Sky was until he watched it break down.

“Hey, now I’m gonna be honest with you Sky,” Time started, with Sky nodding, “I'm not sure why you're nervous and I'm not going press.”

Sky sighed. ”Thank you.”

”Of course. But I’d say,” Time continued, “not to really worry about it until you’ve got some type of proof for everyone, ok?”

“I- yeah, that’s probably for the best,” Sky agreed.

Time nodded once, then looked back down the mountain. “Now, to answer your question,” Sky looked up, shocked, “I time traveled, yeah. Back and forth 7 years many times, then a bit more after. It wasn’t great. I don’t like talking about it much.” Sky nodded solemnly.

Great, that was 2/3rds of the questions Time had about Sky’s question answered. One more remained. “You said you also time traveled?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sky concurred, “The gate of time let me go back a thousand years.”

“A thousand?”

“Yeah, it hurts to think about, so I’ve stopped. I used it to save a dragon’s life. Think that may have created a paradox, actually, not sure about that.”

“Join the club,” Time droned, “I managed to teach the guy who taught me a song the same song. That song has no origin. This is why I stopped time traveling.” Well, one of the reasons, anyways.

Sky nodded. “Yeah, time travel’s much too dangerous, best to not if you can avoid it.”

“Snaps to that,” said someone behind them. Sky and Time quickly turned to the group. They all seemed fully asleep. 

Sky looked confused at Time. “Who said that?”

Time shrugged. ”Not sure.”

They sat silently after that for a while. Sky finally broke the silence. “My bet’s on Legend.”

Time laughed. “Honestly, if it was anyone, it was him.”

* * *

Dinner was over, finally, and the group was taking an evening off, sprawled around the campfire and chatting. Wild himself was seated on a low tree branch, Hyrule resting at the base of said tree next to Legend, who was across from Time, Twi, and Warriors, Sky to their left near Time, and Wind and Four on their right. Wild marveled at the perfect circle they’d managed to fall into.

Currently, Wind had successfully baited the group into describing the weirdest part of their stories. He’d thought his story about the crazy flower girl had been great, but Twilight’s story about killing a giant spider only to uncover it was actually a smaller spider in disguise had been just so much more funny.

“Once again, I am not scared of spiders. I stay over here, they stay over there, and everything is fine,” Twilight said calmly he desperately tried to convince the group that he was not scared of spiders due to this event.

“Sure, sure,” Legend jeered.

“Whatever you say, Twi,” Time smirked, rolling his eyes.

“I am NOT scared of spiders!” Twilight insisted, his arms in the air defiantly.

“And it's time for someone else to go,” Four butted in before an argument could start. “Sky, why don’t you say something.” 

Sky looked at Four, surprised. “I don't think-” Sky was cut off as Four mouthed ‘please, I cannot deal with an argument right now’ very clearly. He then grimaced. ”Fine, just let me think, I don't know what to talk about....”

“You must have something,” Warriors said. “You jump from thousands of feet up on the daily.”

“You’ve done plenty of stealth missions,” Twi adds.

“You're a great fighter too!” Wild added.

“Sky, whatever story you decide to tell, I promise it’ll be fine,” Time assured.

“Oooh ooh ooh, I’ve got an idea!” Wind cheered, “Tell your sailing story!”

“My sailing story…” Sky pondered. “That was weird… yeah… there’s no way they’ve heard of this one. Yeah, ok. You guys ready for the wackiest story so far?”

“Just tell us, the tension’s getting to me!” Hyrule piped up.

“Ok, here goes.” Sky took a big breath. “I fought and sailed with skeleton pirates on a sand sea.”

“WOAH!” Wind cheered.

“That’s actually really cool,” Twilight smiled.

“No fucking way…” Legend murmured.

“It was actually kinda fun,” Sky continued, “I got my bow there. It took them forever to teach me how to use it, I kept holding it sideways so I couldn't actually pull the arrow back-”

“That’s impossible.”

Everyone looked confused at Legend. Warriors said, “Dude, Sky’s just describing a crossbow. Those exist, my sister uses them in combat, duel wields and everything.”

“No, not the existence of crossbows,” Legend scoffed, “The skeleton sand ship. There’s no way.”

“Legend,” Wild said, jumping down from his branch, “of all the people in the group to lie to us, I’d put Sky at the exact bottom of the list.”

“Wind might beat him,” Four added.

“Wind probably beats him, yeah,“ Wild admits, “but still.”

“You- Leg, you’ve done so many things though,” Hyrule questioned, “you must have done something just as weird as that before.”

“And that is exactly the problem,” Legend said, staring straight at Sky, “there is no way an event that odd could happen twice.”

Sky looked at Legend confused. Then Wild watched Sky’s face fall into- is that- was he scared? “No, no, that can’t be possible…” Sky murmured. “You haven’t also had skeleton pirates, have you?”

“I’ll do you one better,” Legend scoffed, “They also sailed on sand.”

The group stared at the two for a good five seconds. That’s when Wild realized he fucking hated this.

“Well, that sure is cool, huh?” He interrupted. ”Despite the differences, it all comes full circle, you know?”

Time winced. The group was quiet for a second more, then Sky shook his head and smiled. “I guess it does! Legend, I promise you I did fight skeleton pirates on a sandship, but I don’t really have proof. Actually, Fi says she’ll tell you if you want.”

Legend glared at Sky. “You had to fight your pirates?”

“Yeah. The captain fought on the tip of the bow.”

“Heh,” Legend smiled, “that’s pretty cool. My pirates were chill.”

“Oh so you liked them?”

“Fuck no, they were imbeciles. ‘I can’t use this old bell’ my ass!”

As Legend continued his story-slash-rant, Wild smiled. Group dynamic back to normal. Damn, he was getting real good at this group thing.

* * *

The group had been walking through the desert all day and Wind was bored. He could deal with some boredom normally, he sailed an entire ocean multiple times over alone after all, but the rest of the group just looked miserable. Warriors, owner of this desert, was still muttering under his breath about how he fucking hated deserts, Time was having trouble due to his armor, and Sky had been sort of out of it ever since that battle with those monsters in Wild’s world a bit back. It was time to activate his ultimate weapon: that the others were still convinced he was just a child. Wind did fucking hate that, but he also was a pirate, and a pirate doesn’t leave any tool unused. 

“Warriors, I’m bored. Is there anything cool anywhere near here?”

“Ummmm…” Warriors looked around the desert they were trekking through. ”Nope!”

“I'm from a literal gigantic mostly empty ocean, how is there more to do there than in your completely developed kingdom?”

“I’m sorry, everyone here has good taste and stays away from the desert.”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuugh.”

Warriors sighed. “Alright, folks, it’s time for ice breaker two-seven-nine, I repeat, two-seven-nine.” Wind grinned. His plan had worked.

“There’s no way we’ve done 279 icebreakers,” Time chuckled.

“It has certainly felt like 279 icebreakers,” Legend griped.

“I can’t believe you know 279 icebreakers, Warriors,” Four stated, “where on earth did you learn so many?”

“When you are in the army, you learn many many things.”

“More importantly,” Wild grinned, oozing excitement, “What’s icebreaker 279?”

“Icebreaker code name two-seven-nine: what is the fastest thing you’ve ever done?”

Everybody stopped. Legend, as he often did, decided to express everybody's thoughts. “That’s the stupidest icebreaker I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s the 279th icebreaker the army made up, what the fuck did you expect?”

“Pretty boy has a point,” Legend admitted as Wind watched Warriors tense at the nickname. “Anyways, my hookshot probably moves me the fastest.”

“Same here,” Warriors agreed.

“I’d have to agree,” Time nodded. Wind frowned, did Time mean he agreed that that was the fastest they’d gone (in which case it was a pretty fucking funny insult), or did he mean that that was also the fastest he’d ever gone? Wind couldn’t even guess, Time was too much of an enigma.

“As you guys know I have been shot out of a cannon before,” Twilight sighed lethargically.

“Yo, me too!” Wind cheered, ”in spirit at least, it was technically a catapult. Though I think those both get beat by the times I got launched across the entire ocean in like 30 seconds.”

“Gosh, are you ok?” Hyrule asked.

“Yup! If I knew it was coming it would’ve been a grand fucking time.”

“Ok…” Hyrule said, unconvinced. “Well, I mainly walk, but my recorder would probably count as fastest otherwise.”

“I freefall from 10,000 feet up often,” Sky supplied. 

“And Sky wins!” Wind declared.

“Now hold on,” Four started.

“You’re telling me  _ you’ve  _ gone  _ faster _ than freefall?” Legend objected incredulously.

“No no no, the fastest thing I’ve done is ride those minecarts, that’s nothing to terminal velocity, but depending on the angle and location of the cannons, Twi may have also reached terminal velocity, and since you, Sky, you’re trained for safe freefall while Twi isn’t, and since Twi is a bit more massive, he may have been going faster. Twi, where was your cannon?”

“I- um- well- can’t we just let Sky have this one?”

“But now I need to know who went the fastest-”

“I didn’t realize you were such a nerd.” Warriors commented.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I just like to read sometimes,” Four responded coldly.

“No, that wasn’t meant to be an insult, that’s cool you have the time to learn that much,” Warriors backtracked extremely quickly. Having known Ri, Wind knew that was meant to be a complement. Wind also knew that the way he said it made it very much an insult.

“Four, what’s a minecart?” Sky asked, stopping the upcoming argument, thankfully.

“Oh. Well, they’re wheeled cubical carts on tracks you can get in and ride on.”

“Wait, I do have those…” Sky said, almost disappointed, before lightening up and continuing, “I never really knew the name, just called them carts. They are super fast though.”

Four chuckled, either missing the mood change or choosing to ignore it. “Oh yeah, and I was much smaller in comparison to my size now, I know what you’re about to say,  _ Wild _ ,” Wild did not say his joke, “so I jumped in the minecart and almost immediately flew out the back.”

“Yeah, the scariest part of my minecarts was when I had to jump the gap in the tracks or fall down 200 ft into the middle of the desert,” Sky said like that wasn’t a horrifying sentence.

“Now I don’t know anything about minecarts,” Hyrule piped up after a moment, “but that sounds obnoxiously dangerous.”

“Sky, where were your minecarts?” Four asked.

“In the desert.”

“In a cave in the desert?”

“No, they were suspended up in the air around the rock formations.”

Wind could see Four tense up. ”And you still rode the minecarts.”

“Well, I had to in order to get into the locked building at the bottom of the facility.”

“You- you at least practiced first.”

“No, I didn’t really think about how insane it was after the three final jumps.”

Four stared at Sky. “Sky, gods be damned, what the fuck?”

“That’s not that crazy, I’ve launched myself across the world many times and I’ve come out fine. I do it all the time,” Wild interrupted.

“I thought you stopped doing that!” Twilight moaned.

“Well, I did,” Wild assured, “mostly.”

“MOSTLY?!?”

“By Hylia, how are any of us alive?” Warriors said as he started the group walking again.

“Pure force of will,” Wind responded.

Warriors sighed, ”Yeah, you’re right.”

* * *

Sky always walked towards the back of the group (of course, he made the exception in order to lead when they were in his world, but that didn’t happen very often). He loved to watch the rest of the group's hijinks as they wandered along to whatever their goal was that day. He noticed the small things from the back of the group. Wind wasn’t not close to anyone, but he was closest to Warriors, who could often be seen carrying him piggyback even though Wind really didn’t need to be carried. Legend always drifted towards Hyrule, though Sky wasn’t sure how conscious that was. Four was hard to find because he moved around the group seemingly at random; Sky would know where he was one second, and the next, he’d be gone. Twilight ended up at the front no matter who’s world they were in, he seemed to have a sixth sense for upcoming enemies, and Time ended up in the back with him. Sky often wondered if Time’s motivations were the same as his own: a desperate attempt to keep them all safe from surprises when he knew danger could come from anywhere when walking the woods. Time was the oldest one of the group, by how many years Sky didn’t know, so he must know as much as Sky himself that their protection only went as far as the reach of their swords (and maybe not even that far in the worst scenarios).

Sky shook his head and tried to focus back on the group. Twilight was yelling at Wild for doing something. Ah, Wild had picked a mushroom off the ground and eaten it. Honestly, of everyone in the group, Sky figured Wild would be the one to know his mushrooms. Wild did some wack things (oh, some of the things he did were extremely insane), but he knew what he was doing. Like, he may have jumped off the cliff a while ago, but he did so because he knew he had a paraglider, just like Sky knew he had his sailcloth.

The more Sky thought about that, the more he hated it. Not the fact that Wild had a paraglider in itself, if it had just been that Sky would have been overjoyed to have a flying buddy. It was that it was all of them. It was a cute coincidence when Wind got real excited about sailing, then the tears and the guardians and the collecting the Triforce things had been surprising and worrying, then talking to Warriors had really caused him to figure out the pattern that was occurring. Talking to Time had made him feel better until the skeleton pirate incident had really just punched him in the gut. The minecart thing had just been kicking him when he was down. It wasn’t that these similarities existed, it was that Sky journey mirrored the others often enough where it wasn’t a coincidence anymore, and with the curse he’d unleashed-

No. No, he’d decided he was only going to think about this on watch,when he was alone. He should focus on the group. 

The group was talking about something new now, that argument about mushrooms over because Wild hadn’t collapsed (see, he hadn’t expected Wild to eat anything bad). 

“You mean he was an actual human man?” Hyrule was asking.

“Yes. When I met him, he was male mage, a bit taller than me.” Time responded.

“Was he ever not a guy? Like, I’ve fought some fucking wacky demons, but he wasn’t one,” Wind added, frowning, “at least not physically.”

“I fought a guy, but then he turned into a beast at the end.” Warriors said.

“Mine did the beast thing too, though I swordfought him last,” Twilight started, “but Wild’s was wacky.”

“Oh, yeah, he was like a spider, and also four wraithes, then like a big boar,” Wild agreed, “and when I say big boar I mean like he was the same height as the castle. Really on his last legs at that point though, the spider portion was much more difficult.”

“So let me get this straight,” Four said, “Wild and Time just fought a guy-”

“Mine actually did the beast thing too,” Time corrected.

“Okay. So Wind fought a real live normal person, while Time, Warriors, Twilight fought both a guy and a beast, and Wild fought just the beast part. I also only fought the boar beast part, and I only really learned about him an hour before fighting him, which was a time. Legend?”

“Put me in the just the beast category but like 5 times.” 

“How did you fight him multiple times?”

“I’ve met a lot of crazy wizards,” Legend complained, Four nodded in understanding. “I do know the actual, not reincarnated guy nowadays. Bit of an asshole, but otherwise fine. Great organist, I’ll admit, really impressive.”

“Are you sure he’s safe?” Time asked.

“This man has been vetted by the most competent people I know, and also  _ me _ , many, many times,  _ and _ we’re keeping an eye on him,” Legend assured, only a little offended and only because it was Time asking. “He’s safe, we’ve taken many precautions.” Legend chuckled. “Many precautions.”

“Well, Legend joins me and Wild,” Four tallied, “‘Rule?”

“My Ganon was a beast,” Hyrule said, twiddling his thumbs, “pig-like, but more upright. Only fought him once, though.”

“That seems to be the norm, other than our resident Ganon-fighting veteran,” Four smiled, “so that puts you in the group with me. That just leaves you, Sky.”

And with that everyone was looking at Sky, who was horribly, utterly, completely lost. They had not said a name until two (that’s  _ two _ ) sentences ago, and they all were confident in what they were talking about. Sky decided to start simple. “You guys are talking about Ganon?”

“Yup,” Four clarified.

A feeling in Sky’s gut told him this was going to end bad. Well, he thought, here we go. “Who’s Ganon?”

The entire group froze. Sky looked at them blankly (he hoped). Actually, hold on, someone was missing.

Warriors (oh, that’s who was missing!) practically jumped over Time to get a look at Sky. “Hey Sky, what the fuck?”

“What did I do?”

“He’s like the main big bad guy we all fought?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call him the main big bad, gives him too much credit,” Four muttered.

“My fights make up for whatever happened with your lame Ganon,” Legend said, glancing at Four before continuing to stare at Sky.

“You have never heard of Ganon,” Time asked, or more so stated.

“Not before right now actually.”

“Who did you fight then?” Hyrule asked.

“Um, a guy named Demise?” Sky was met with blank stares.

“Never heard of him,” Legend confirmed.

The group was silent for a moment. Sky hated this, because he wasn’t dumb, and he could easily see the connecton between his ‘missing’ god and the other’s identical foe, that being the curse he should have stopped before it even was muttered, was this Ganon Demise reincarnated, or had he just taken a different name and was actively terrorizing-

Warriors interrupted his thoughts. “Well, in all honesty, that’s probably for the best. Gives us, as a group, more variety in experiences, which makes us more equipped to fight whatever has caused us all to be pulled together like this.” Warriors grinned. That was a complement to Sky’s capabilities, probably. Warriors was a fun person to talk to because he was absolutely horrible at giving compliments despite how hard he tried. Sky attempted his best smile back, though he’d never been great at faking it (it’d actually been working more recently, maybe he just only tried to do it around Zelda, who knew him too well for it to work). 

“Also our differences make us unique and are as important as our similarities,” Four added (or corrected depending on who you ask).

“And I wanna hear about your different villains too!” Wind cheered. “One of mine was a squid, but, get this, he had like so many eyes!”

“Where do squids have eyes?” Time asked.

“What’s a squid?” Wild asked.

And so the group lapsed back into normal conversation. Sky could tell that some of the group took that much less well than the others, such as Legend and himself, who was only panicking a little now, but in all honesty, this new information didn’t change much other than making the curse seem somehow even more real. In fact, what Warriors and Four said made Sky feel better. One one hand, the one startling difference and 8 (or more) similarities may be a bleak reminder of Demise’s curse and his own culpability, but on the other hand, the differences make you unique and the similarities can be shared and cherished (well, as much as you can cherish various levels of traumatizing experiences, but the idea was there). Yeah, Sky figured, he could take the good with the bad here and keep rolling with the punches thrown at him. It’s what heroes did, after all: go with the flow, you know, as you do.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was started at the beginning of March. It is now the end of April. Woops. At least I get to publish my Sky content. He tries really hard and deserves more love.  
> Well, I'm now stuck at home for the foreseeable future, and school ends in a week or two, so I'll have more writing time I guess. Also, I've noticed a lot of the fics published recently have been pretty dark, like, really dark. Is everyone ok? Like, times are real rough like now, so I hope everyone's staying as safe as possible and dealing with the stress as well as you can (it sure isn't easy). My next fic will be a real upper, I promise!


End file.
